Author's Note: I know it's been a ridiculously long time since I've updated and I apologize. Profusely. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to be away from this story for as long as I was. But sometimes life (and time) just gets away from us sometimes and we find ourselves in unintended situations.

If anyone is still interested in reading, I will continue to post here. And I'll try my hardest not to make anyone wait nearly as long between updates again.

Chapter 29

Quinn made it to the coffee shop before Santana, so she ordered herself a latte and a muffin, settled into a seat at a table in the corner clear view of the door and pulled a book out of her messanger bag. She tuned out the din of conversation and laughter around her and let herself get lost in the novel. Only to have it ripped from her grasp a few chapters in.

"Santana Lopez, all growed up," she drawled, rolling her eyes and sighing, even as she bit back a grin. It was such a simple thing but she couldn't help but find some small comfort in the fact that while some things changed, some things remained the same.

She flashed back to the countless times Santana had done this same thing to her in high school, any time she happened across her reading in the hallway in front of her locker or before class started or while waiting for Glee rehearsals to start. She'd tear the book from Quinn's hand and offer up some snide comment or insult and Quinn would roll her eyes and examine her hands for papercuts, both of them ignoring the ill-hidden books that Santana had stashed around her bedroom. The Hemmingway in the pile of laundry on the floor that Quinn had stubbed her toe on, the Steinback peeking of from beneath her gym bag on the shelf in her closet, the Austen on her desk under a pile of magazines.

It had taken her almost a full year at Yale to stop hunching over her books and curling an arm protectively around them and to stop jumping whenever anyone hovered near her while she read. Her roomate and some of her classmates probably thought she was nuts.

Quinn glanced up, expecting to meet Santana's smirking gaze only to find her reading the back jacket.

"Good book," she said finally, placing it into Quinn's outstretched hand with a smirk.

"Uh-huh." She tucked it back into her bag and then rigthened herself in her chair, bringing her gaze back to meet Santana's.

"So, you and Berry huh?" Santana said, jumping right into it. "Gotta admit, I never saw that one coming." She cupped her hands around her coffee mug and brought it to her lips, blowing on it gently as she continued, "Despite our little daliance, I never took you for an actual lady lover. Figured you'd be in full Stepford mode by now, y'know?"

Quinn nodded. She did know. It had been the plan all along, after all. It's what she'd been groomed to do, following in her mother's footsteps of marrying well and becoming a PTA mom.

"Well, congrats, " Santana said, raising her mug in a toast. "I guess. I mean, is that what you say when your friend starts banging a hobbit?"

Quinn chose to accept the congratulations and ignore the jibe. "Thank you, Santana."

"Anytime."

She reached across the table and snagged a chunk of Quinn's muffin, popping it into her mouth with a please or a thank you, eyeing Quinn as she did so with a faint smirk, as if waiting for her to protest. Some things really never did change. Instead of reacting, Quinn calmly sipped her lattee.

"So, you guys seem like things got heated pretty quick," Santana said, pulling Quinn's muffin across the table towards her.

Quinn nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I know it's fast-"

Santana snorted. "I'll say. I've seen Berry make her dates wait weeks, hell, there was one guy she made wait almost a month, before falling in between the sheets. I can't imagine dating someone for a whole month and then finding out that they're horrible in bed."

Quinn nodded along, there was some truth to Santana's comment, but her mind was kind of stuck on the first bit of what she'd said. A month? She'd known that Rachel, like herself, wasn't one to jump into bed with someone just because there was an attraction but she'd never held out that long. She could usually tell within a few dates if the person she was seeing was someone she could see herself having something with. And she couldn't help but be feel perversely flattered that she'd managed to make Rachel break her self-imposed rules.

"...but that's just me. I've never been down for all that fairy-tale crap that you and Ms. Thang go for. I've always been able to separate sex from romance y'know. They're not always synonymous. Gotta say though, I'm surprised you both would go there."

Quinn narrowed her eyes at Santana, startled by her comment. "What do you mean?"

Santana leaned back in her chair and raised her hands up in a defensive positon. "Hey, I don't mean nothing bad by it. I'm just saying I'm surprised either of you would decide to take that step, considering."

"Considering what?"

"Are you really so mooney eyed over each other that you haven't taken into account the shelf-life of your relationship?"

Quinn just stared at her, not comprehending what she was saying.

"Oh, my God. Seriously? Who are you and what have you done with Quinn Fabray?"

"I assure you, Santana, I'm not a pod person. Now, will you please tell me what the hell you're talking about?" She tried to keep the ire out of her voice but she saw Santana flinch slightly at the hard edge that crept its way into her words.

"You live in Boston," Santana said slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

Quinn quirked an eyebrow at her and frown, indicating that she was not impressed.

Santana smirked back and rolled her eyes but continued on in her normal cadence. "And Rachel lives here in New York. What's going to happen with your budding romance when your work here ends and you have to go back home?" Santana raised her hands in defense. "Look, I'm not trying to cast doubt or anything. It's just, I know both of you and I've seen how you both get in relationships. The long distance thing isn't for either of you. And, it's really not feasbile anyway."

Quinn couldn't help but feel oddly touched by Santana's concern, even if it was unwarranted.

"I'm going to be here working on this play for awhile. And when it's done, well I can write anywhere," she said with a shrug.

It was Santana's turn to stare at her. "What are you saying?" she asked. "Would you really just uproot your whole life and move to New York? Just like that?" she asked, with a snap of her fingers to emphasis her point.

"No, not, just like that." Quinn snapped her own fingers as well. "But, like I said, I'm going to be in New York for awhile and we'll see how things between Rachel and I progress. Boston is a great city and I love living there. But there's nothing holding me there. And since Rachel needs to be in New York for her career and I can pursue mine anywhere it's the solution that makes the most sense. So yeah, I'd move out here."

"And you guys have talked about this?" Santana asked, sounding slightly awed. And maybe a little bit disturbed. Quinn had a feeling it was a reaction she was going to have to get used to considering how quickly things between her and Rachel were developing. "After two days?"

"We haven't discussed it yet," Quinn said.

"So, what, you just came up with that decision on the spot?"

"Yeah?" She bit back a smirk. While it wasn't a line of thought she'd actively pursued, it wasn't the first time it had popped into her head either, so maybe it wasn't genuinely a spontaneous decision but it wasn't something she'd been contemplating either.

Santana blinked at her, looking slightly dazed.

"Hey, enough about me. Let's talk about you. Tell me more about how you came to be part owner of a bar."

"Not quite what you expected me to be doing here in the Big Apple?" Santana said with a grin.

"Not really, no. Though, it does seem oddly fitting."

"I know, right? Well, you know how after I moved out here I was working crap jobs and getting nowhere with auditions right?"

Quinn nodded. She remembered one horrible commercial, for a yeast infection product and a string of complaints about asshole casting directors and menial jobs.

"So anway, after about a year I found a not so crap job at this bar. The place was a little more high-class than the Coyote Ugly and Barracuda Pretty's I'd been working before y'know? Not like posh or anything but less drunk co-eds and more blitzed yuppies. The owner was this pervy old guy who would rather be out on the floor flirting with the drunk bitches than behind his desk doing actual work and shit, so he kept promoting me up. Assistant manager. Manager. And then finally he gave me a piece of the bar. It's not big, only like a quarter share. And his kids will probably buy me out when he retires and they sell the bar but at the time it was enough money to keep me going between gigs."

Santana snagged another bite of Quinn's muffin. "This is good, you should try it," she said around a mouthful and then washed it down with a sip of coffee.

"And I was still going out on audtions. I did a couple of sessions as a studio singer, but Santana Lopez is back-up for nobody. Y'know. And I got a couple of bit parts, movies a couple of tv shows. But I got tired of playing gangster girlfriend's and hooker number three."

Quinn nodded in sympathy. Though she hadn't spent much time in her original major she'd watched friends and classmates suffer through the same process Santana was describing.

"So, I started looking into what it would take to have my own place. Managing the bar was actually kind of fun, and I'm really fucking good at it, but I wanted something that was my own. I took some buisness classes and got all my loan papers in order and now here we are." Santana shrugged and offered up a rare, genuine smile. Not a smirk, not a grin but a wide, beaming, smile. "I'm about to open up my very own bar."

Quinn smiled back and reached across the table to squeeze Santana's hand. "Congratulations," she said, "I'm so proud of you."

Santana held her gaze steadily and turned her palm over, squeezing back as they allowed themselves this brief, rare moment of sincerity.

After a moment she ducked her head, hiding behind the curtain of her hair "I haven't given up on my other dream though," she said quietly "I've been writing. And Britt knows some people and hooked me up with some studio time. I'm recording a demo. It's almost finished."

Quinn's breath caught in her throat and she squeezed Santana's hand even tighter. "San, that's...that's amazing. I can't wait to hear it."

"Thanks, Q." Santana's voice was soft in a way that it very rarely was and it sent a surge of pride and affection coursing through Quinn.

They sat in silence until the moment passed. Santana leaned back in her seat, sliding her hand out of Quinn's grasp and reaching for her coffee. Quinn used her now free hand to slide the muffin across the table, out of Santana's reach and raised it to her mouth, taking a large, crumbly bite.

"Oh, that's attractive," Santana scoffed, shaking her head. "And please, like it's really going to stop me from having more. It's not like I haven't where that muffin is."

Quinn chocked on the food in her mouth and dropped the muffin to the table with a moist splat. "Oh, my God. Santana," she rasped. "You can't just say stuff like that."

Santana just laughed and reached out for the muffin, bringing it to her lips and taking a small, dainty bite.

"I hate you," Quinn muttered, wiping the crumbs from her lips and shaking a few out of her shirt.

"You love me."

"No. I really don't." She took a long sip of her latte. "You suck."

"And lick, and bite. And I never heard you complain about it before."

"Oh, my God, San. Seriously. Stop."

"Why's that? Is it turning you on?"

Quinn rolled her eyes and then zeroed her attention in on the other woman. She propped one elbow on the table and leaned forward against it. "And if I said that it was?" she asked, low and husky.

It was Santana's turn to choke. She coughed, spluttering muffin crumbs across the tale towards Quinn.

"Oh, that's attractive," Quinn echoed back to her with a sneer, flicking the crumbs back across the table with her napkin.

"Hey, when you're this hot, everything you do is attractive," Santana said. "And you really need to stop coming onto me. Your girl wouldn't like it."

Quinn huffed a laugh and tossed a napkin at Santana. "Wipe your face, you're disgusting."

They sat in the coffee shop for hours and yet when Santana glanced at her watch and announced that she had to be going, that she had to be at work soon, Quinn felt like it had been no time at all. She was dissapointed to have to rise from her chair and walk Santana out the door and to a cab. They'd fallen so easily back into their comfortable rythmn of light teasing, mild sniping and genuine conversation it was as if it had been days that had passed since they'd last seen each other, not years.

"I'm really glad we did this," Quinn said as Santana stepped to the edge of the curb to hail a taxi.

Santana glanced back and nodded. "Me too. And it's not going to be a one time thing, either is it? Unlike some of our previous interactions?"

Quinn rolled her eyes and laughed but she meant it when she promised that, no, it wouldn't be.

"I mean it, Q. Don't be a stranger again."

"I won't."

"Even if, heaven forbid, things don't work out with Berry?"

Quinn cocked her head, giving Santana an appraising stare. "You really going to want me around if that's the case?" she asked, the words slipping out of her mouth before she could decide if they were a good idea of not.

Santana gave up on attempt to hail a cab and turned to face Quinn.

"The fuck, Q? You really think that the only reason I'm glad your in my life again is because you're dating Rachel?"

Quinn just shrugged, not quite sure what to say. It was kind of the only reason she was even in Santana's life again. Was it really that far-fetched to assume that if things with her and Rachel didn't work out, Santana would side with Rachel in the split?

"That's messed up, Q. I'm going to let is slide, just this once. Because you've always been a little slow on the uptake when it comes to knowing who your real friends are." Santana stepped up to Quinn, getting right in her face and locking her gaze with Quinn's. Her eyes were hard and fierce, glitting with fire and emotion. "But I don't ever want to hear you suggest that your place in my life is contingent on whether or not you're dating my girl Rachel again, okay?"

Quinn nodded slowly, her words caught in a lump in her throat.

Santana's gaze softened slightly as she stepped back. "I love you, Quinn," she said, softly, sincerely, not the flippant parting that she habitually offered. "And maybe I didn't say it enough. Maybe if you'd heard it more you wouldn't have-"

"No, San. Don't. It wasn't you. It was-"

"It wasn't you, it was me?" Santana smirked.

Quinn shook her head. "There was nothing you could have done. Nothing you could have said. There was a lot of stuff I needed to sort through. On my own."

Santana nodded. "I get that. I've been there. Which is why I'm not mad at you for dropping out of my life the way you did. But if you do it again, I won't be so understanding. You got me?" She narrowed her eyes, part playful, mostly serious.

"I got you." Quinn nodded. "I'll see you later, all right?" She offered a soft smile and turned.

"Hey, bitch, where do you think you're going?" Santana called to her back. Quinn spun around slowly, just in time to see Santana glaring at a passerby who sent her a sideways look.

She took the two steps back to where Santana was standing and looked at her expectantly.

"I said I love you, bitch," Santana said, opening her arms for a hug.

Quinn huffed out a laugh and stepped into her arms, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. "I love you, too," she said, close to Santana's ear.

"Good. Now g'wan, get out of here," Santana said, releasing her. " I got a cab to catch and you've got a troll at home waiting to-"

"Goodbye, Santana," Quinn cut her off before she could say something lewd and probably accurate and spun on her heel. Santana's laughter rang in her ear as she walked away.